


bloody interlude

by spoke



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 02:31:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoke/pseuds/spoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Posting the best part of something I wrote years ago, and will probably never finish. It should stand well enough on its own.</p>
<p>I'm not sure it really needs the graphic violence warning, but better safe than sorry.</p>
    </blockquote>





	bloody interlude

**Author's Note:**

> Posting the best part of something I wrote years ago, and will probably never finish. It should stand well enough on its own.
> 
> I'm not sure it really needs the graphic violence warning, but better safe than sorry.

Xaldin touches his fur sometimes. When he does this, it is different from Belle’s gentleness and concern. It is almost... an appreciation. One monster to another. It makes Beast hesitate, so he’s not as fierce as he should be in insisting the strange intruder must leave. He does not watch his words as carefully as he should, either, and he knows there is something hidden in Xaldin’s words. He knows the man is not as sympathetic and reasonable as he tries to appear. 

He just can’t point out the lie when all of his words seem true. 

* * *

A stirring of wind drew him out into the courtyard. He pushed open the great doors with a grimace, taking in the tang of metal and the sleek feel of oil, and something else that might be the wind itself, if wind had a smell of its own instead of merely carrying other scents. He might never get the stink out of his mind. 

His face contorted further when he saw what Xaldin was doing.

The man was standing in the middle of his courtyard, practicing some kind of fighting with a spear from his armory. The best thing that could be said was that it wasn’t an enchanted object - or worst, since then it would probably be attacking him for removing it. 

“Put it back.” 

He stopped slowly, letting the form end with the spear’s butt resting on the cobbles as he smiled lightly. The hood was back up this time, but not so tightly as to completely conceal the bastard’s face. He’d have preferred not looking into those eyes. 

“I thought we might have a friendly spar.” 

“Put It Back!” he yelled, advancing.

Xaldin matched his pace, moving backward without concern, responding as if he hadn’t just shaken the ground around them slightly. “You seem a bit tense lately. It would do you good to let go of your aggression.”

He held out a matching spear, and Beast thought - he could remember his teacher saying something similar when he was human. He definitely remembered enjoying it, but that had been because he’d beaten the older man. He’d mocked him, too. In a manner far more suited to his present shape.

“No.” he replied, trying to be polite because he knew it irritated Xaldin. He turned to go back inside, and within a few steps Xaldin was in front of him again. He never understood how the man moved so fast. “No, Xaldin.” 

He pulled the hood back, staring at Beast with those disconcerting eyes. “Were you not trained?” 

Beast heard himself growling lowly at the touch of challenge in the words. “Yes.” 

“Then spar with me.” 

He snarled. “I can’t hold it properly, are you satisfied now? Leave me alone.” He stepped back to go around him, and stopped as Xaldin laughed. He had never heard the sound before, and it was low and rich and just as subtly infuriating as the voice it belonged to. It ended in Xaldin staring at him with an expression he’d caught on the man’s face before.

A sort of hunger he couldn’t understand.

“Why are you laughing?!” he growled, and snatched the spear away. It smashed to tinder in his claws as he snarled with as much fang as he could show, and took a swipe at the man.

It wasn’t quite human, the way he dodged, the lightness of someone built that strongly. It made Beast feel as if Xaldin were holding back, as if he were looking down on him. But he stood there looking at the bits of spear with that same hunger in his eyes, and he looked up into the Beast’s without disguising it, and somehow he was the one who backed away. 

He spoke softly, using a coaxing tone that somehow wasn’t gentle at all. “Use your claws, then. I have a weapon that can take the damage.” 

He backed away again as the Beast advanced, and he was holding a spear now that seemed far more suited to him than that old relic from the armory had been. The expression on his face and the way he held himself, all of it pulled at Beast until he couldn’t restrain himself anymore.

He hardly realized he was lunging until after the fact, when Xaldin was lightly moving out of his way and he snarled, snatching at the hair that whirled with the man’s movement. That finally seemed to irritate him, and the spear rang against his claws as they connected. 

 

Consumed as the Beast became when he sank into the darkness, his eyes remained clear. They reflected Xaldin’s feral joy back at him in glimpses caught between the dull gleam of claws and the sharp glitter of his spear. It was almost too easy, guiding him into the darkness. There was never any challenge in it until the fool tried to attack him, and even then he had to hold back. 

The Beast connected suddenly, one clawed hand grasping the spear as the other tangled itself into his braids. It held for a moment of rage and distrust and some stranger emotion only one of them would dare put a name to... and Xaldin wasn’t about to tell the Beast what he was really thinking. 

Another spear appeared nearby, slicing through the nearest bit of cloth to the fur beneath. 

The Beast shook his head, snarling in confusion and looking as if he almost might be beginning to think through the haze. A few more spears at work on his clothing brought on a panicked rage that solved the problem quite nicely. 

Xaldin heard himself making a sound somewhere between a growl and a purr, all hostile anger and pleasure as the darkness began clouding his own vision. His last deliberate action was to make sure the doors were locked, because the last thing he wanted was Belle coming to her Beast’s rescue. 

It was enough inattention for the Beast to pin him, if only for a moment. Looking up into the gloating snarl on the Beast’s face, Xaldin finally decided he’d done enough holding back. 

* * *

He yawns, stretching to enjoy the strain in muscles that are even now stitching themselves back together out of darkness. Their scent is still around him, rising from the Beast’s blood and his own spilled darkness. It will linger for days, surely. He can just picture him, avoiding the place out of guilt and confusion. The Beast never seemed to retain his mind in the darkness. He could be imagining anything had happened. He might even convince himself nothing had. 

Xaldin’s laughter lingered in the courtyard as the darkness opened up his path to home.


End file.
